


Smoke Rings

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Canon Era, Cigarettes, Episode: s01e05 Crossroads (Band of Brothers), Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29047224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Babe runs into Roe in a bar. Too bad neither of them know how to flirt.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27
Collections: Fandom Snowflake Challenge





	Smoke Rings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrKsan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrKsan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Baberoe sketch dump](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/750699) by MrKsan. 



> Remix of Ksan's lovely Babe/Roe fanart (top picture in this set: [BabeRoe sketch dump](https://ksansart.tumblr.com/post/641499606683926528/babeore-sketch-dump-might-finish-a-few-of-them)) featuring Babe lighting Roe's cigarette.
> 
> Written for Fandom Snowflake Challenge #14: Multi-media remix.
> 
> Thank you to Anthrobrat for reading it over.

Bill hadn't been back from the hospital for a day when he insisted on going into Reims and dragging Babe with him. "Need someone to hold me up," he said, his arm clamped around Babe's neck like a vice.

"Yeah, sure, fine," Babe told him, though he couldn't say he minded. He'd only been into Reims a couple times and at least it was better than Mourmellon-le-Grand. Though, in Babe's opinion, there weren't a lot of places that were worse than their current quarters, the Island in Holland being one of the few.

Babe was just thinking that it was good to have Bill back with the unit—not that he'd admit to anyone, even Julian, that he missed that South Philly bray—when Bill ditched Babe in a dive bar on the edge of town. "Them skirts at Lulu's'll hold me up fine," he said on his way out the door, leaving Babe with a bottle of weird French beer and his own company.

Rather, he left Babe with a bar full of rowdy paratroopers on passes. Half the two divisions crammed into Mourmellon looked like they were out on the town, but somehow, looking around the bar, Babe didn't see anyone he knew.

Sighing, Babe considered just going back to camp, or following Bill, but he really wasn't in the mood for either, and he wasn't in the mood to stay here. (There wasn't a hell of a lot he felt like he was in the mood for since Holland.) He gave the bar another look, thinking he'd at least get another drink before giving the night up as a bad bet, and his eyes landed on someone familiar.

It took Babe a moment to place the dark hair half shadowed against the wall as first platoon's medic. Roe had his shoulders hunched up to his ears, his hands wrapped around a highball glass, and an attitude of a man who was having as little fun as Babe was. Or maybe it was just that he wanted to be left alone, though if that were the case, he could have stayed in camp, or taken a pass into Paris, where there was less chance of running into someone he knew, if he was looking for that kind of anonymity.

Babe decided that if Roe was there, he probably wanted the company as much as Babe did, and made his way down the bar until he shouldered some numbskull from the 82nd out of his chair. He took the abandoned barstool, sent a warning elbow after it's former occupant, and leaned against the bar next to Roe.

"Hey," he said.

Roe glanced over at him, straightening out of his hunch, nodded to himself, and spent too long considering, before saying, "hey," back.

That left Babe more or less out of conversation openers. He knew Roe well enough to say hello, but other than lectures about trench foot, they'd never exchanged much more than a nod in passing. It felt strange, too friendly, to ask why Roe was in that bar, or if he'd come with anyone. Babe glanced at Roe's pale, angular face—trying not to notice the moisture on his lips, or the way colour was now brushing across his cheekbones—then down at his bottle of beer.

"Uh... got a smoke?" Roe asked, and Babe tried not to visibly sigh in relief.

"Sure," he said and pulled a pack out of his blouse pocket. "Just Raleighs."

The corner of Roe's mouth ticked down, but he lifted his shoulder slightly and held out a hand. Even in the dim light of the bar, Babe could see that his hands were chapped and beat all to hell same as Babe's were, but Babe still found something about them strangely compelling, maybe all the way to graceful. (That was the kind of word Babe tried not to use even thinking about another fellow, but as Roe took the smoke Babe tapped out for him, and lifted it to his lips, other words followed: elegant, pretty, trouble.)

Instead of going through his pockets for a lighter, Roe lifted an eyebrow; Babe took far too long to work out he wanted a light as well.

The Zippo worked out to be in the fourth pocket Babe checked, and he thought as he flipped the cap open that with his luck, it'd turn out to be out of fluid, but the spark caught with that familiar bite of ozone. Babe held the flame up, and Roe leaned down, holding the smoke between his lips, but steadying it with two fingers. He drew in a long, even breath until the cherry caught. (Somehow over the clatter of the bar, that sound filled Babe's ears.) Babe let his hand drop, and Roe let out a long stream of smoke through his nose, then held the smoke away from his face.

"You, uh, want a drag?" Roe asked, like Babe didn't still have the whole pack in his hand.

Babe only remembered he hadn't closed the lighter when the sides of the Zippo got hot enough to start to burn his fingers. "Sure," he said, and took the cigarette from Roe. Their fingers brushed, and Babe hoped the muggy heat of the bar hid the way he must be blushing. When he put the smoke to his lips, he could taste a hint of whatever booze Roe was drinking. Whiskey, he thought.

This proxy of lips on lips was too close to the real thing for Babe's peace of mind. Sure, he'd shared a lot of smokes over the years, but that mostly came down to necessity, not whatever this was. He pulled in a drag—which still tasted like damp sawdust, fucking Raleighs—and made a miserable attempt at a smoke ring when he let it out.

Roe's eyes crinkled as he smiled and took the cigarette back. "Never could do that either," he said. Instead of taking another pull, he sipped his drink, and then glanced up at Babe through his eyelashes. "Thanks, Heffron."

"Everyone calls me 'Babe,'" Babe told him hopefully, but Roe just shrugged again and took a drag before holding the cigarette out again.

Babe took it. He already felt too hot, and the words he wanted to say—all the little flirty come ons and implications that got him places in Philly—boiled through his mind, but none of them seemed right, not here, and not with Roe.

"Sure, anytime," was all Babe could come up with.

They sat so close their knees almost touched, but didn't, and silently passed the smoke back and forth. The taste of Babe's beer mingled with Roe's whiskey on the filter, and Babe imagined he could sense their breath joining to fill the space between them before it got lost in the swirling smoke of the bar.

Finally, both their drinks were gone, refills waved off, and they only had a little more than the filter left. Babe stubbed the last ember out and grimaced. Roe had kept looking at him in a way that, if he'd been back home, he'd more or less know what to do with. Here he wasn't sure, and he couldn't afford to get this wrong. Now it was over, and he'd missed his chance.

Roe hopped off his bar stool, rolled his shoulders, and said, "Heading back."

"I should probably wait for Bill," Babe said, thinking regretfully of sitting in a bus next to Roe, their thighs pressed together. He was pretty sure he was imagining that Roe looked disappointed. Babe's wishful thinking had made him see a lot of things over the years.

"Another time," Roe said, and Babe wished he'd talk more. He liked Roe's low voice and the way his Louisiana accent brushed over every word. (At some point in the last ten minutes, Babe had given up on the things he was trying not to think about another fellow.)

"Yeah, another time," Babe said, and watched him go. He could only hope that if that were true, he'd have thought of something to say by then.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos totally make my day, and I very much appreciate comments of every length, percentage of emoji, and level of coherency.


End file.
